March 29, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read •Open to a random page •Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week I'm reading The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan. I've been looking forward to this book for several months now - I pre-ordered it as soon as I was able! - and I'm so excited to finally have it in my hot little hands! I LOVED The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead-Tossed Waves, so I have pretty high expectations for this third installment of the series (or final book in the trilogy, whichever she chooses). So far, it has more than lived up to those expectations. Check out this teaser from page 70:

I can't catch my breath, startled terror zinging through my body. What if I am one of them? I relive the pinch of the Unconsecrated biting my arm, the feel of the edge of his teeth against my ear.

March 27, 2011

March 24, 2011

I just came across this reading challenge from MizB's blog. I thought it sounded kinda fun because I would be able to incorporate books I'd already planned to read for other challenges (or pick up from the library where I have an extensive TBR list!) over the next few months, and making a list would just help me organize them a bit more.

My list includes:

The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan (Which should arrive at my house TODAY!!)

The Sight by David Clement-Davies (This is one I need to get off my shelf!)

Electric God by Catherine Ryan Hyde (This is another one I have had on the shelf for a long time but I will be keeping this one because it's signed!)

Plague by Michael Grant (Pre-ordered; should arrive around April 5th or 6th - YAY!)

Fire by Kristen Cashore (I plan to borrow this one from the library. It's been on my TBR list for a long time now!)

The Princess and the Snowbird by Mette Ivie Harrison (Another one I'll be getting from the library. I was really excited to see she'd written another book because I really enjoyed The Princess and the Hound and The Princess and the Bear!)

The Final Warning by James Patterson. (I've been enjoying the Maximum Ride series a lot and would really like to find this book at my fave used bookstore so I can take it on my upcoming vacation, but if I can't, I'll pick up a full-price paperback because it's a perfect vacay read!)

Mariel of Redwall by Brian Jacques (I'm pretty sure I can find this - as well as all the rest of the Redwall books - at Buckets of Books in Atascadero. This is the next one in the series, as I'm trying to read them in publication order, but I'd pretty much read whichever one I can find next. It would also make a great vacation reading book!)

March 23, 2011

March 20, 2011

Today was the first day of spring, though you couldn't tell because it RAINED ALL BLOODY DAY!

I'm bitterly disappointed that this rain has prevented me from seeing the Super Moon everyone keeps talking about. I've seen pictures on the news, and wow, it looks awesome! We usually have a great view of the moon out our kitchen window, and mom and I were both really looking forward to seeing this one. It happens very rarely and we likely won't be around to see the next one.

le sigh!

Still, I made the best of a day indoors. I stamped some Easter cards, that came out really pretty (if I do say so myself), and bought some more supplies for our Earth Box garden online. Mom and I didn't do a garden last year because we were getting our backyard redone, but this year we're looking forward to having fresh bell peppers and tomatoes! I'm not sure what other veggies we'll do, or if we'll just do some flowers, but we're getting excited about planting stuff!

Earlier this evening there was a very brief break on the horizon (not soon enough to have caught the moonrise, however) that produced a beautiful rainbow:

It was a very bright rainbow that I could see from end to end while standing in my back yard (getting rained on), but it only lasted about five minutes then it was gone. Still, it was lovely and I'm thrilled I was able to get a few shots of it before it vanished!

March 19, 2011

This weekend I tried a new recipe, and while it didn't come from one of my Clean Eating magazines, it was still a healthy meal: Mahi Mahi with Asparagus, Broccoli and Spinach from Make It Fast, Cook It Slow by Stephanie O'Dea from A Year of Slow Cooking.

As promised it was super easy to make. All I had to do was clean and cut up the veggies and put them in the crock pot and put the mahi mahi on top.

A few hours later it was done. I added some low fat macaroni and cheese and it was a pretty good meal:

If I were to make this again, however, I would do a couple things differently. First, I wouldn't use the quarter cup of lemon juice. It was just WAY too strong and the broccoli was almost inedible because it soaked up the most lemon juice. I think I would just use the lemon juice on the seasoning mixture that was put on the fish and use a quarter cup of water for the liquid. Second, I would put the veggies in only for the last 15 to 20 minutes. I personally prefer my asparagus and broccoli to be very lightly steamed so that it's cooked but still slightly crunchy and my spinach to be just barely wilted, and these veggies were very well cooked after three hours in the crock pot. The fish, however, was perfect and delicious! I would definitely cook fish in the crock pot again!

March 15, 2011

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read •Open to a random page •Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page•BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Good morning, readers! This week I'm (finally) reading a book I've had sitting on my shelf collecting dust for at least two years. Maybe more. Not really sure. Anyway, I started it, but never finished, so I decided to put it on my Off the Shelf Challenge list this year. Hopefully I'll get the book read this time, and when I'm finished I can take it down to Buckets of Books to exchange for something else!